CONGRATULATIONS TO KING CHARLES III ON HIS CORONATION TODAY . . .

The Chicago Tribune article (May 5, 2023): “King Charles III will use his position to help build a better world”

“The King’s belief in empowering young people also extends to his other great passion: protecting the environment and tackling the climate crisis. He understands the efforts and the impact of environmental and youth activism well, having delivered his first environmental address on the dangers of oil and plastic pollution at just 21 years old. The King has carried on conservation and climate advocacy ever since, and he has been widely recognized as one of the climate action pioneers who ‘got the whole thing going,’ in the words of President Joe Biden.”

CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE ABOUT KING CHARLES

THIS WEEKEND—WARMEST OF 2023 TO DATE—TO AVERAGE 25-DEGREES WARMER THAN LAST WEEKEND

Record high within reach with Sunday’s 87-degree forecast high — it would be the warmest here in more than 8 months

• Warmth to break as southward building high pressure sends “NE” winds into Chicago off Lake Michigan Tuesday and Wednesday, but near 80-degree highs to return again late next week
• What’s to be striking about this weekend is the increase in temps when compared to recent weekends. This week is to average an eye-catching 32-degrees warmer than two weekends ago and 25-degrees warmer than last weekend when daytime highs on that Saturday and Sunday were 59 and 48 degrees respectively. Compare those temps to this weekend’s 77 and 87-degree forecast highs.
• A third consecutive day of 70s is ahead Saturday, readings well above the 67-degree normal high. But Sunday is to see the weekend’s warmest temp with an 87-degree high predicted—a July-level reading. An accompanying surge in humidities Sunday will lend the day a mid-summer “feel.”
• Dew points—a measure of atmospheric moisture—are to reach the low to mid 60s Sunday. Adding moisture to the air makes it feel warmer. And since water vapor holds onto and re-radiates heat, the more humid air from the Gulf of Mexico will keep Saturday night minimum temps from falling out of the 60s. The moisture will also fuel some clusters of showers and t-storms.

Sunday could see Chicago temps flirting with a record

• An 87-degree high Sunday May 7th would be a July-level temp and would tie the day’s 1964 record if it verifies. It would also be Chicago’s warmest temp in the more than 8 months (since an 88-degree high back on Sept 3).
• Interestingly, only 12 of the past 151 May 7s have recorded a daytime max temp of 80 or higher—amounting to only 8% of the high temps on the books for May 7th.
  A WORD OF CAUTION: LAKE MICHIGAN’S WATER IS STILL “COLD”—THAT MAKES SWIMMING FOR ANY PERIOD OF TIME IN LAKE MICHIGAN A DICEY PROPOSITION
• Hypothermia can sneak up on swimmers quickly and without a lot of advance warning when water temps are only in the 40s to near 50 degrees, which is the case this weekend. Hypothermia can be incapacitating leading to loss of muscle control and drowning. So, even with temps as warm as they’re likely to be Sunday, swimming in Lake Michigan should be approached with extreme care. We lose people to hypothermia each year in similar conditions and don’t want that to happen this year.

T-STORMS WILL OCCUR IN CLUSTERS OVER THE WEEKEND—SEPARATED BY A MAJORITY RAIN-FREE DAYTIME HOURS DURING SATURDAY AND SUNDAY

Timing t-storms is a tricky proposition. It appears some showers, a few possibly with thunder, may linger into early Saturday morning over 20 to 30% of the metro area. And, several may regenerate with daytime warming in the afternoon. The expectation is t-storms will proliferate again Saturday night, impacting 40 to 60% of the Chicago area—then drop off in coverage Sunday—only to pick up in coverage again Sunday night into Monday.

LOOKING INTO NEXT WEEK—WARMTH TO BE CHALLENGED TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY BY “NE” WINDS OFF LAKE MICHIGAN

• A high pressure to the north builds southward into the Midwest for several days, but warmth building back into the area later in the week and into next weekend.
• The high won’t have a huge pool of cool air to tap Tuesday and Wednesday. The cooling it’s to produce is the product of winds off the cool waters of Lake Michigan.

A NEW LIGHTNING FORECAST TOOL— KNOWN AS “ProbSevere LightningCast”

Developed by researchers at CIMSS (the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Studies) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

• It offers meteorologists a forecast of which developing precipitation-bearing clouds are LIKELY TO PRODUCE LIGHTNING 10 to 30 minutes before the first lightning flashes occur. The system involved GOES weather satellite imagery and ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) to produce predicted probabilities of lightning occurrence.
• The animated depictions of the forecasts feature calculated probabilities of lightning occurrence which are superimposed over GOES weather satellite animations. The forecasts are available to National Weather Service meteorologists through the agency’s AWIPS weather data displays.
• AN EXAMPLE OF THE “ProbSevere LightningCast” SYSTEM AT WORK is provided in this ANIMATION of developing t-storms over southwest Oklahoma April 19, 2023. https://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/satellite-blog/archives/51808

• And here’s a post by CIMSS researcher John Cintineo on the “ProbSevere LightningCast” system at work on t-storms developing across Nevada and California https://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/satellite-blog/archives/52162
• Imagine the POTENTIAL applications of this technology—at airports or many other lightning sensitive outdoor venues—like golf courses or at rocket launch sites like the Kennedy Space Center.

A LOOK AT “GRAVITY WAVES” — THOSE WAVY PATTERNS IN THE CLOUDS

We see examples of gravity waves when we look up at the clouds above us more often than we might think. when you see wavy cloud patterns—these are examples of “gravity waves” in the atmosphere.

• Wavy cloud patterns—GRAVITY WAVES—occur frequently around mountain ranges. But, changes in wind speed with height can induce them as well or the sudden upward rush of air — such as what occurs with thunderstorm updrafts — can produce GRAVITY WAVES as well.
• Introducing the term “GRAVITY” makes it sound like they are some exotic role of gravity in producing what we’re seeing. It’s wise to just drop the term “gravity” and refer to what we’re seeing as “waves.” It makes what we’re seeing LESS COMPLICATED sounding than when we refer to what we’re seeing as GRAVITY WAVES.

• GRAVITY WAVES occur when features of the terrain—like mountains or even the updrafts produced within t-storms or the cloud towers within a hurricane—force air to displaced vertically. If this upward movement is halted by a stable layer of air above, then the displaced air will spread away from its source HORIZONTALLY as a set of ripples in the air—which we can clearly see at times in satellite animations.
• GRAVITY WAVES AREN’T LIMITED to the air around us. When we throw a pebble into a lake or body of water, we see ripples in the water fan out from the point of that pebble’s impact with the water. These are a form of gravity waves.